So why shouldn't "etcetera" include making up for centuries of oppression, i.e., giving African Americans (and other people of color, including Native Americans, and women) the sh*tty end of every opportunity stick from colonization through Jim Crow and beyond?

I mean, if "merit" extends to the ability to catch a football, why can't it include the concept of reparation for wrongs committed? Why can't it include the fact that one's ancestors were enslaved or were victims of genocide?

That's what I don't get about your "merit" argument, JS. It can only be made from a comfort of the dominant culture picking and choosing what "credentials" fit into your personal definition of meritorious. So yes, you do need to list your qualifications in this case--and explicitly say who you would exclude from the list. Or at least give it more thought than you seem to have done to date.

Affirmative action was enacted primarily because certain American institutions refused to admit people of color (and women, btw). The law basically says, "You refused to do the right thing on your own, so here are the rules." In that way, it's not much different from forcibly integrating other public spaces--because that was the right thing to do as well.

Systemic racism and prejudice has robbed and continues to cheat many Americans of equal opportunity. It's much better than it was 50 years ago, but the problems are far from solved. In all equality markers--wealth/poverty, health, education, employment, imprisonment--people of color are further away from equality today than they have been in decades. And our society keeps pulling the rug out from under policies and institutions that could make a difference--public schools, for example.

When you tell someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, it's useful to check and see whether they have boots at all. In other words, the playing field remains vastly unequal. Affirmative action policies are just tools in the toolbox to extend opportunities to those who have been historically denied opportunity. It's not perfect (as a matter of fact, the whole concept deserves examination, IMHO), but it has empowered many to make lives they could not have achieved otherwise.

Well, yeah, JS we "should" do a lot of things, but that describe the real world I'm familiar with.

Who "should" decide what the measuring stick for merit is?

Is a football player a better college student because he can catch a ball? Probably not, but star athletes get to go to college when--all other things being equal--others don't.

Is a 4.0 grade average from a Jackson public school better or worse than a 4.0 average from an Ivy League prep school?

Is it more "meritorious" to be class president or to do volunteer work? Or how about a student who is the first in his or her family to graduate from high school versus another raised by professors on staff of the university?

Those are the kinds of questions admission boards look at. The issue is not as simple as grades and test scores. Or skin color.

College admissions have NEVER been strictly based on merit. Consider that many kids get into school because their parents attended "back in the day" and their families have the wherewithal to provide big bucks through the alumni association. If you don't think that doesn't happen, I suggest you might look a little deeper.

Affirmative action is a complex issue, so let's not oversimplify. As a society, we can either turn a blind eye to the fact that the playing field is not level, or we can work to level it. If we say we want to provide equal opportunity, we must consider much more than just grades and test scores.

This statement is hilarious given Hosemann's push for voter ID in Mississippi:

"Our relationships and trust in each other have matured."

So just who is it that can't be trusted to vote without proof of citizenship? Oh yeah: We the people.

At the risk of stating the obvious, I'm not black. I can't really know the depth and breadth of oppression and racism African Americans have experienced and continue to experience to this day. But understanding, even a glimmer of it, is a worthwhile goal that I continue to strive for. I bring to the conversation my own experience of second-class citizenship from being a woman in a society that has rarely provided women equal opportunity--not even smart, hard-working white women--or the right to their own life decisions. My parents, who shared a hard-earned wisdom learned through living in another violently oppressive society--the Third Reich--also shapes my thinking.

Here's what does scare me--that minorities and women still struggle daily to achieve equality in America despite decades struggling for justice. The myriad declarations that the problems don’t really exist any more scare me. We can't seem to learn from experience. It’s disheartening that some people would rather not talk about inequality or act to change it. I don't know what it means to be born a white male in America with money and power and position, either; that's an automatic and permanent head start in America. You've got the advantage, and as long as those in power see equality as a zero-sum game, little can change.

I expect that you and I share some opinions--such as the inanity of the Kemper coal plant. But on the subjects of race and equality, we have a deep divide. I choose to work within my sphere of influence and opportunity--my back yard. If that makes me "short-sighted and provincial," well, that's your opinion. And so far, that opinion has little relevance to me.

The words that open your May 30 column are: “The election of Chokwe Lumumba as the Democratic nominee for Jackson mayor has everybody talking about race. That’s not a good thing.” The rest of the column justifies your position, including the insinuation that because white Jackson voted for one “blacker” candidate, their votes really weren’t about race at all, but ideology. You may sincerely believe that, but I don't agree with you.

Racial tensions are not something to be swept under the rug and not discussed. In fact, the campaign brought out some horribly racist comments, so it’s still very much a problem in Mississippi and in Jackson. It’s a symptom of our racialized society that more than 90 percent of northside whites voted for one candidate in a field of 11—the only one that they felt represented their interests.

It’s only through honest, open dialog that we can quell fears and resentments and resolve those issues. Not talking about race keeps the problem stuck; it’s not a solution.

Because the Northside Sun requires a subscription to read anything at all, I don't have access to answer your challenge to do my "best job to find something racist" you have written.. Charging for every word you publish is your right, of course, but all I can access is what you've chosen to provide here and some headlines. And some of those headlines—"Lumumba still embraces radical agenda" and "Unifier vs. Divider: Jackson election offers clear choice"—don't inspire me to read on.

Chokwe Lumumba doesn't scare me. Neither do I agree with everything in his plan. I don’t knee-jerk into fear and outrage at the mention of Socialism or Communism either, the words you danced around with your “hundred million deaths in China and Russia” comment. We all tend to fear what we don’t understand, and I’ve seen a lot of evidence that most people don’t understand those forms of government or the conditions under which they arose. Most Jacksonians haven’t read the Jackson-Kush plan either, or they couldn’t get past the rhetoric to a deeper understanding. Is Lumumba radical? Maybe. You and I likely have different opinions on what radical is, and both of our opinions are probably light years from what a black person in Mississippi believes is radical when it comes to their struggle for equality.

Well, Wyatt, I guess we have a fundamental disagreement here--a proverbial "failure to communicate." The fact that your words were "misinterpreted" not just by me but by many people should tell you something. If not, so be it. We're coming from different places--diametrically opposed places.

Granted, the bit about your proclaiming to be the arbiter of all things black was snarky. For the snark, I apologize. As for the rest of it, not so much. Proclaim also means to "declare something one considers important with due emphasis," which is how I used the word.

No one here ever said you wrote the 2004 column; however let’s put to rest, once and for all, that it was not a “letter to the editor.” As I write this, I’m looking at the copy I made today from the original clipping, which the JFP had in its files. It is clearly labeled “Guest Column” with a photo of the author and laid out on the page next to “letters to the editor.”

In the column, the writer comes out against naming the Jackson airport for Medgar Evers and against restoring Farish Street, because that would “memorialize” poverty and prostitution. He says African Americans should be thankful for slavery because without it they would never have opportunities America affords; they’d be in the “tribal slavery in Africa” of today. He advocates condemning “several blocks west of the Woolfolk State Office Building” for the convention center because he doubts the city could “wisely spend all that money.”

At the end of the column is this addendum (a couple of words are under highlighter and illegible on my copy, but I’ll update it when I get back to the office Monday):

“Publisher’s Note: Dan is the winner of the … Northside Sun column writing contest and we are mailing him a $100 check! The … angle and insightful commentary made the column stand out. Every five submissions, the Sun picks a $100 winner.”

Your words, Mr. Publisher—“insightful commentary.”

I also didn't disparage Water for Malawi. In fact, I wrote “that's wonderful; I'm sure he's bettered and saved lives in Malawi.”

What I disparaged was an impulse to help that comes from a place where I once stood--that poor oppressed people need my help. I don't stand there any more, and the shift came out of some hard work to realize that, ultimately, it's a position that keeps me a position of power and those I help subordinate. It’s a far cry from empowerment to achieve success and equality, which is where I stand today.

Here's an editorial regarding another one of Wyatt Emmerich's columns I thought y'all might find interesting.

[Wyatt Emmerich's ‘Welfare' Chart Dissected by The New Republic][1]

[1]: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/20…

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It's interesting to me that Emmerich doesn't explain anything he wrote in his column of May 30, (except to say that he can't find anything racist in it) which may go down as just about the most blatantly biased and ignorant pieces I've read this year coming from a 21st century Mississippi news publication. Still the Sun's 2004 column—which, to the best of our memory was not labeled as a "letter to the editor" by the way—tops it for outright racism.

As a newspaper publisher, Emmerich certainly has every right to print (and pay for) anything he wants to. He could exercise that privilege to refuse to print, much less pay for, racist drivel. As a public figure who chose the former option in a public forum, he shouldn't be surprised that his judgments follow him. Perhaps, given that he seems blind to his own racism, he can't see others', either.

As evidence of his pure motives, Emmerich provided a column that is mostly a recitation of Myrlie Evers-Williams' words, not his. In the 200 words that he actually authored, he mentioned race twice—as if just being white and in the same room with people of color draw forth proclamations of "reconciliation" from his lips. It's not a word Evers-Williams used.

At some point, Emmerich may do well to do more than pray and sing "Kumbaya" with sincere and salty tears in his eyes. He might actually try taking his blinders off.

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It's also a splendid example of the white hero riding in on his white horse from half a world away to save the poor black Africans. I'm not saying saving people is a bad thing, but we should recognize such efforts for what they are.

I've got to ask: What about your back yard, Wyatt? What about the poverty and malnutrition in Jackson and the Delta, where you also own newspapers? What about the food deserts and the cuts to Head Start and the fact that Mississippi has one of the highest high school dropout rates in the nation? What about the unemployment and the incarceration rates of young Americans of color being exponentially higher than that of young white Americans? What about the millions in corporate welfare Mississippi hands out while denying funding for adequate education and basic health care to its citizens? Where is your outrage about these issues?

Again, I am not saying that work in Malawi isn't important. None of these issues are easy, and Emmerich should do what he believes is right. It demonstrates that he has a heart. It just comes up a little short as proof of anything else.

The problem, from my point of view, is that Lumumba's message doesn't fit into Emmerich's "white hero" narrative, so rejecting him must be about his ideology—which Emmerich connects to "a hundred million deaths in China and Russia" without any supporting evidence. It can't be about race, he implies. Instead, his election, Emmerich wrote, is an "embarrassing setback." Embarrassing to whom? A setback to what?

Lumumba's message can't be about reconciliation, either, at least not reconciliation on white conservative terms. The word "reconcile" indicates restoration of some lost state of harmony that once existed. Consider that such an exalted state may not exist in the mind of the oppressed, who were never in harmony with their oppressors. Equality, not reconciliation, is much more to Lumumba's point. Anyone who doesn't understand that nuance might want to deeply explore the institutionally racist issues that disproportionately affect (in huge numbers) people of color in America--such as poverty, imprisonment, lack of opportunity and so many more.

And, while I suspect not one of Emmerich's privilege-blindered opinions is accurate, I am not so arrogant to assume that I know "the truth" about him or about how an entire race in Jackson thinks--not even my own. If I have some mistaken impressions, I'm open to clarification, though so far, nothing Emmerich has written has changed my mind. I can say unequivocally that the African Americans I've spoken to about Emmerich's May 30 column are variously flabbergasted, horrified and angered—and I can infer quite a lot from those reactions.